1969-70 O-Pee-Chee Bill Hicke #145 Oakland Seals VG 3

Description

1969-70 O-Pee-Chee Bill Hicke #145 Oakland Seals VG 3 Bill Hicke was once the most hyped young winger in the Montreal Canadiens organization, a Regina native who arrived during the closing chapters of the dynasty that won five straight Stanley Cups, and this 1969-70 O-Pee-Chee card #145 catches him at the moment he finally delivered on that promise in a very different setting. After stops with the Habs and the New York Rangers, Hicke found his true home in the expansion era with the Oakland Seals, where he became the club's most dependable offensive presence and one of the fastest skaters in the league. The bilingual reverse spells out the breakthrough, noting that last season finally turned out to be the big one long predicted for Hicke, that it was his best ever, and that he is a right winger who shoots from the left hand side. The 1968-69 statistical line of 67 games, 25 goals, 36 assists and 61 points is the high water mark of a career totalling 574 NHL games and 321 points, and the cartoon panel remains a collector favourite for its Ah-Choo gag about the persistent allergies that hampered Bill's play, printed in both English and French for the Canadian market. Hicke later signed with the Alberta Oilers of the World Hockey Association, bridging two professional leagues in a career that spanned the pre-expansion Original Six and the wide-open seventies. Because #145 falls above card 132, it is exclusive to the Canadian O-Pee-Chee release and has no Topps counterpart, which keeps these high numbers in constant demand from set builders on both sides of the border, while the kelly green and Pacific blue Seals sweater adds strong defunct-franchise appeal. The reverse is the standard teal and gold bilingual back printed in Canada. It is a bilingual back, not a puzzle back. the front shows honest circulated wear, with rounded corners at all four points and a small crease touching the upper right corner tip, light white chipping scattered along the top and right edges, a faint vertical handling wrinkle visible in the pale background at the right side, and centering that sits slightly high with a narrower top border; colour remains strong and the portrait and uniform are unmarked by scuffing. The reverse shows moderate to heavy chipping along the bottom and left borders with corner softening, light surface abrasion at the lower left of the gold panel and mild overall toning, while all English and French biography text and the complete statistical lines stay fully legible with no writing, tape or pinholes. A conservative raw grade estimate of VG 3 accounts for the corner tip crease and edge wear while recognizing an otherwise solid, structurally sound vintage single that displays nicely in a page. Grade Estimate: VG 3